Obra que só veio a público nos anos 1920, sob injustificadas mutilações do filho do escritor, "Alves & Cia." foi escrito provavelmente nos anos 1880. Dado o tema, seria parte do projeto por Eça intitulado ¨Cenas portuguesas¨, que a morte prematura não permitiu consumar.
No enredo, ao fim do expediente, um belo dia, Godofredo da Conceição Alves, principal sócio da casa que leva seu nome, recorda seu 4o aniversário de bodas e decide fazer surpresa à mulher. Ao chegar em casa, porém, o comerciante depara-se com Ludovina, a esposa, dividindo o sofá e carícias com seu jovem amigo e sócio, Machado. Flagrado o adultério, resta-lhe a defesa da própria honra – via um duelo de morte. À construção impecável das personagens soma-se, aqui, o humor da efabulação: o próspero comerciante saberá julgar o preço da honra moral? ( )

“Hearing her there, he turned, peeped in...And what he saw - good God! - left him petrified, breathless. The blood rushed to his head and so sharp was the pain at his heart that it almost threw him to the ground. On yellow damask sofa, fronting a little table on which there stood a bottle of port, Lulu in a white negligee, was leaning in abandon on the shoulder of a man whose arm was around her waist, and smiling as she gazed languorously at him. The man was Machado!”
(Entrou. (...) e o que viu santo Deus, deixou-o petrificado, sem respiração, todo sangue na cabeça, e uma dor viva no coração, que quase o deitou por terra... No canapé de damasco amarelo, diante de duma mesinha, com uma garrafa de vinho, Lulu, de robe de chambre branco, encostava-se, abandonada, sobre o ombro dum homem, que lhe passava o braço pela cintura, e sorria, contemplando-lhe o perfil, com um olhar afagado em languidez. Tinha o colete desabotoado. E o homem era Machado.”)

In “The Yellow Sofa” and in the original Portuguese edition “Alves & Cia” by Eça de Queiroz

It's always struck me that the epigraph to Anna Karenina was an injunction to suspend judgment. "Vengeance is MINE, saith the Lord, [not yours]. I [not you] will repay."

That is, it's not not our job or responsibility or privilege to judge or carry out vengeance. That injunction should ring throughout the reading, as a reminder to approach these characters and their actions open-mindedly and open-heartedly, and as a brief encapsulation of what I see as the suggestion that these characters--and by extension people in general--are far too complex for our profane and limited comprehension that can only deal with the binaries of damned/not-damned, guilty/non-, etc. I know Tolstoy turned into quite the judgmental curmudgeon later in life, but his main works of fiction strike me as saying, in essence, "Here is humanity. Look. Judge not.

Books written about cheating almost always get it wrong. We all know tab (a) goes into slot (b). Even Eça cannot escape this dictum...What most authors leave out are all the lies but not my favourite Portuguese novelist. In real life lies bring down governments, get people fired, see children tossed out of school and make families fall apart. You can only describe sex acts so many times but lies are the damaging details.

I’ve read Madame Bovary. I hate books about stupid women. I think the misogyny that underscores so many of these books is what makes me dislike them so. Bill Clinton was not a bad president but he shook his finger at us and lied and that is now his legacy.

A lot has changed since Madame B. and the Scarlet Letter - in literature as in life - the adulterous woman may no longer have to kill herself or be killed, at least in western society, but what remains unchanged thru the centuries is the gulf between attitudes to a woman's adultery and a man's. In Louise Doughty's Apple Tree Yard the adulterous woman is shamed and nearly destroyed not just because she is a wife and mother, and about to be a grandmother, but because it is revealed that she went out in public without any knickers and had sex against a wall in a back alley. Could there be a situation - or a plot - where a man is similarly shamed for going out without any underpants (we'll allow him trousers, just as she wore a skirt) and having sex in a public place? I don't think so. There might be a few sniggers in court, perhaps, but I doubt it would destroy him - and it is unlikely to form the basis for a literary plot. Challenging though.

Ludovina only rivals Mme Marneffe in Balzac's "Cousin Bette in which a “femme fatale” whose husband keeps a low profile while she juggles her four lovers, playing them off against each other (at one point they are actually bidding against each other for the right to call her their mistress) and making all of them believe that he is the father of her future child. No English novelist of the period would have touched a plot like that with a barge-pole. Eça comes a close second by delving instead into the lies being the salt that rubs the wound raw. And they turn even the good memories sour...The master role of the duels' godparents, who act as deterrents and dissipators of the tragedy, stands out. They are largely responsible for the comical and burlesque side of the novel, by masterfully using the art of sophistry to lead to the forgiveness of the “transgressor” pair, the reconciliation of partners, and the return home of the adulterous wife. Mainly because, while comforting Godofredo, they comment on the piquant details of their own adventures with married women. What Eça wants to denounce here is precisely the overlapping of less noble motives to stifle a scandal that would be condemned by the morals of the day. Eça unlike Flaubert is much more interested in transcending the microcosm of the family to the worldview of Portuguese society as a whole, demonstrating the failure of ideals in the face of an increasingly fast and arduous world. It was in this world that a Portugal of the end of the sec. XIX, based on the great Portuguese Sea Expeditions and colonialism. Eça de Queirós and the Generation of 1870, intended, through its art and its policy, to promote the updating of the Portuguese mentality.

NB: Anyone who has ever been cuckolded will have a field day reading "The Yellow Sofa", I'd say...or maybe not... ( )

The title novella was found in a trunk by Eça's son and only published 25 after the author's death. It is, as is common in Eça's writing, a humorous satire of Portuguese bourgeois life. The other six short stories in this collection are also wonderful reads. You can't go wrong with Eça. ( )

My first novel by this Portuguese author and what a good surprise it has been to recognise some of the wit and irony altogether with a cunning message, similar to other famous authors styles such as Oscar Wilde.
Mr. Alves and Mr. Machado have been business partners for many years. But when Mr. Alves catches his beloved wife in a stolen embrace in the arms of his long time friend and partner, hell breaks loose and Alve's life tumbles down.
Always in an elegant and swift style improper of the time, De Queiroz manages to give a unique touch of humour to a mainly dramatic storyline, adding some deep worthy messages one should apply to live a happier and fuller life, and to make the best out of a bad situation.
Definitely advanced for his time.
Recommended. ( )

El próspero Godofredo da Conceição Alves, comisionista de ultramar, vuelve un 9 de julio a su casa dispuesto a sorprender a su bella mujer con un regalo por su cuarto aniversario de bodas y, en efecto, la sorprende… en salto de cama, en el sofá, con su joven socio Machado. ¿Cómo afecta esta tragedia del honor a un hombre ridículo que no quiere ser puesto en ridículo? El repudio, el suicidio, el duelo a muerte… todo es considerado por quien ingresa en «la grotesca tribu de los maridos traicionados». Todo también es, a su debido tiempo, descartado. ( )